PRESS RELEASE:Canada’s plan to mobilize science to fight COVID-19

The Government of Canada is supporting our country’s researchers as they do critical work to protect the health and safety of all Canadians, and people around the world, during the COVID-19 outbreak.

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today
announced support to quickly mobilize Canadian researchers and life sciences
companies to support large-scale efforts towards countermeasures to combat
COVID-19, including potential vaccines and treatments.

This $275 million for coronavirus research and medical countermeasures is part of the Government of Canada’s more than $1 billion COVID-19 Response Fund. The funding will be used to advance projects that are already underway by university researchers and others to respond to COVID-19, and ensure domestic supply of potential vaccines.

These research efforts can move quickly, and include:

$192 million in new projects that will be prioritized under the new Strategic Innovation Fund COVID-19 stream to deliver direct support to Canadian companies for large-scale projects. These companies include:

AbCellera, a Vancouver-based biotech company that has built the world’s leading technology for antibody discovery, is at the forefront of developing antibody-based drugs to treat and prevent COVID-19. AbCellera’s technology is being used to search blood samples of patients who have recovered from COVID-19 to find naturally-produced antibodies that can be used for treatment and prevention. AbCellera was the first company in North America to receive a sample from a convalescent patient, and within days identified over 500 human antibodies that are candidates for development as a treatment. The company has partnered with global biopharmaceutical company Eli Lilly to rapidly manufacture and distribute a treatment with the goal of begining clinical trials in July 2020.

Medicago, a Quebec City-based company with 20 years of experience in plant-based vaccines and therapeutics, that has identified a viable plant-based vaccine candidate currently at the pre-clinical testing phase. Funding will allow Medicago to rapidly move forward on clinical trials and then quickly shift to scaling up production for pandemic response.

Funding for
the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization –
International Vaccine Centre (VIDO-InterVac), one of the largest and most
advanced infectious disease research facilities in the world. With $11 million
in funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, VIDO-InterVac will be
able to strengthen its existing expertise in coronavirus research and to help
develop a vaccine for COVID-19. An additional $12 million from Western Economic
Diversification’s Regional Economic Growth Through Innovation program will help
VIDO-InterVac expand its bio-manufacturing capacity to support clinical trials.

Funding of $15 million for the National Research
Council of Canada to upgrade its Human Health Therapeutics facility in Montréal
to develop, test and scale-up promising vaccine candidates to be ready for
industrial production. This will involve certifying the facility for Good
Manufacturing Practice (GMP) quality assurance to ensure that their human pharmaceuticals
and biologics, including vaccines, are consistently produced and controlled.
This certification will support a more effective roll-out and production of
vaccines, and help ensure that any vaccines produced by the facility can be
made available to Canadians and people around the world more quickly.

Support for
BlueDot, a Toronto-based digital health firm, with a first-of-its-kind global
early warning technology for infectious diseases. The company was one of the
first in the world to identify the spread of COVID-19. The Government of
Canada, through the Public Health Agency of Canada, will use its disease
analytics platform to support modelling and monitoring of the spread of COVID
19, and to inform government decision-making as the situation evolves.

These measures are part of a larger strategy the Government of Canada is implementing to protect Canadians and prevent the spread of the virus. The whole-of-government strategy will help ensure the capacity of our health care system, support international and domestic efforts, and mitigate the economic impacts on Canadians and Canadian business.